My Take on Retail: Part 2 - WTF

Retailers are facing increased verbal and physical abuse from shoppers who in many cases see no wrong in their behaviour towards staff, a new report suggests.

The study, commissioned by G4S Security Services, found one in 20 Brits believe it is acceptable to abuse a shop worker verbally if they are unhappy with the level of service.

Over the last five years, 1.6 million consumers have verbally abused retail staff for supposed poor service, the survey claims.

Shockingly, it also claims more than 150,000 Britons think physical abuse against retail workers is justifiable if they deem the service insufficient.

G4S sales and marketing director Douglas Greenwell said: "It is wholly unacceptable that retail employees should face the threat of verbal or physical assault.

"While shoppers are increasingly time pressured and expect high levels of service, this should not be allowed to translate into abuse towards store workers."

Shane Brennan, public affairs director at the Association of Convenience Stores, said: "Abuse of people working in stores is completely unacceptable. Communities and police must work together to help retailers. They have to make clear that violence is unacceptable."

John Hannett, general secretary of shopworkers' union Usdaw, said: "This survey confirms what Usdaw has been saying for a number of years. We will continue our work to protect shopworkers from abuse."

A survey by Independent Retail News last year found 26% of independent retailers had suffered verbal abuse, 13% physical assault and 11% had been threatened with a weapon.

The original story appears in Independent Retail News : Friday, 16 January 2009

Britain is certainly not alone when it comes to customers abusing employees. It is becoming more and more frequent for us to be threatened, demeaned, and cursed out. It saddens me how supposedly sane people think that it is okay to treat employees the way that they do...and the worse part is that corporate believes: "The customer is always right."

My Take on Retail: Part 1 - LOL

Want a job where you are disrespected and made to do menial tasks? Do you like thanking random jerks for making your day miserable? Retail may be just the job for you! Why?

I started working retail over six years ago and I love it! The customer service experience is great! Many of them treat me poorly and act like they too superior to even listen to me when I ask them if they need assistance. They litter the stores, ask stupid questions, mess up displays, moan about service, etc. Many of these customers need the staff to fawn over them, apologize for things that are not our fault, and expect a bright cheery smile and "Thank you!" for shopping at the store. It's very fulfilling to be so needed!

And what really makes any retail experience enjoyable is your co-workers. They are very helpful pointing out when I'm not being polite enough to customers or that my sales are inadequate. It's great to have constant reminders that I'm not doing my job well enough!

The money is excellent too! On a retail salary, I can not afford to pay for my bills, rent, or food alone. I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when I step into Wal-Mart and cash my .04 checks.

And talk about a future! Why would you want to be an office administrative assistant that makes more than a store manager? It's a sound investment to take the best years of your life to fully devote yourself to a company that will throw you away in a heartbeat.

Retail is the place to be! If you haven't already gotten yourself a dead-end job, I say go for it! It's everything I dreamed it would be...and more.

Pranks at Work - LOL

∆ Click the name of the post to go to the site. ∆

I stumbled across this website thanks to random facebook advertisements and thought I would share. It gave me a few laughs today when I needed them. I found this one in particular extremely funny:

Only 10...ish Minutes Late - FML

When I say 10ish, it's probably more like 30, but who's counting? Other than the time clock of course.

When things happen to me, it's not just an instance, it's a production. Today I was scheduled to be at work at 9:00 so last night I set my alarm on my phone to 7:30 to give myself PLENTY of time.

Of course, being the heavy sleeper I am, when fire engines and EMS vehicles began blaring their sirens on a nearby road at around 4:00, I found it slightly difficult to go back to sleep. Once I finally began to re-enter dreamland however, I awoke to a falling sensation. As I hit the floor and became extremely confused at my predicament, I realized that I had simply rolled too far...which is something I haven't done in quite some time.

Bruised and tired, I crawled back into bed and attempted to ignore the blatant snoring from my adorable, yet obnoxiously loud, puppy dog to no avail. After a few strong nudges, she changed her position and it was mostly quiet again, although by then it was after 5:30. Worried that I wouldn't be able to wake up to my alarm, I set an additional one at 7:20 and put my phone right beside me on the bed...the only issue being that when I laid it face down beside me I was unaware that it was still "on" and depleting my battery life significantly.

When I finally woke up again I went to check my phone to see what time it was and...of course, it was dead. After plugging it in to charge I saw that it was 8:35, so I began to scramble to get ready. I found my clothes for work relatively quickly...almost as quickly as it took the toothpaste to find them. So, while trying to find another shirt, Ayla began whining and I realized I still needed to take her out.

I found the leash, grabbed my keys, and went to the door. As I went to open the door, the doorknob came off in my hand...you'd think it would be easy to put a doorknob back on, but under the circumstances, I was having a difficult time. After attempting to pry the door open with my hands and having no success, I again went back to the task of trying to reattach the knob. I finally managed to open the door and out went Ayla...with no leash to restrain her.

As Ayla exited the apartment she saw something that obviously interested her and went full speed towards what appeared to be a barking rat. Luckily the other dog was close to the elevator so I was able to yell enough that Ayla decided it wasn't worth the chase. After having to coax her back the put the leash on we finally went downstairs.

After her bathroom trip we went to go back inside and I realized I had brought the wrong keys. I have two sets, so it was bound to happen someday...just WHY was that day today? And to top it off, I realized I had the wrong set as I removed my foot from a previous lawn visitor's deposit.

My pride was barely in tact as I walked up to the doors smelling like poop and pleading through the glass to the lady at the concierge counter let me in the lobby. Thankfully during my haste in taking Ayla outside, the door to the apartment hadn't closed entirely, so I WAS able to open it and get back inside. That was the highlight of my day. As I went to leave, the doorknob came off in my hand again. *sigh*

As I walked to where the car was parked, I kept scraping the bottom of my shoes hoping to get the bowel residue off...then I saw where it ACTUALLY was. It was on my pants...and scraping my shoes was just grinding it in further. I used some old coffee, that had been in the cup holder for days, to "wash" my pants of the odor. Turns out, a little more thought should be required before I'm allowed to operate a cup of old coffee.

On the drive to work there were two, yes, two accidents...and I seemed to hit every light on the way.

As I hobbled into work, still in pain from my prior endeavors with mother nature, I had no idea what I should say. "Sorry" just didn't seem adequate enough, yet, that was all I felt I could produce. No excuses. But, as I tried to log in, I found that I was still logged in from the prior day (when power went out), so I hoped that I could just dodge logging in alltogether and once they found the error they would just fix it...no such luck.

I saw the district manager and managers from other stores coming out of the break room. Turns out today was a visiting day. FML.